Game UI question:In my current project, I have a selection of items that is presented in a side-scrolling bar (in a landscape view), where the user needs to pick one. There will be >50 items, so that scroll area is rather wide. I want to narrow that selection by allowing to chose a subcategory in a space above that bar. There will be >8 categories.Now, I could do eight buttons. Which doesn't look that great. Navtabs can't be stacked to eight or more. I really dislike the picker wheel for that (there would be one button "select category" and when that is pressed, the picker wheel would come up and the user picks a category).What is your favorite way to present such a subcategory selection? I'm in a playful, almost game-like environment. Think of it as the scrollbar containing character items and you want to allow the user to narrow it down by "weapons, shields, helmets, etc." How would you do that UI? Feel free to refer to an app where you like the approach.﻿

+Matt Rix in the wake of the Netflix pricing outcry I heard a bunch of namedrops of other services on Twitter and got curious. I HATE the netflix apps on both iPhone and iPad. They are slow, crash a lot, hide user reviews (which I really like to see, esp when evaluating kids movies on suitability). I find Netflix' streaming selection not great and like everybody else I keep drinking the Kool Aid that it will improve soon :) I really don't mind the pricing, wanted to kill the dvd service component anyway, but very much dislike their app quality and the selection.The hottest candidate from this discussion for me is Amazon Prime streaming, I wasn't aware of that and will check it out. We have Amazon Mom, which gives you Prime for free.﻿

Spent two hours in the Air & Space Museum today. Although we made photo software for those "we take a picture from you, replace the background with something Space related and sell it at the exit for a horrendous price" once, I never understood who would buy such an overpriced picture.But today I went because my 3.5yr old boy "earned" it as the reward he chose after collecting five stars over five nights going to sleep without additional calling. They took that photo in the very moment when he was beaming with excitement, just seeing his first airplanes.Now I know who buys those pictures. And I feel like a target (group). Oh well :)﻿

If you had to teach programming (games, in case it was not clear) to kids 9+ what would you use? I am partial to Processing, or JavaScript, but some of you on Twitter recommended Python, Ruby, and even Java (o.O!). Take into account I want to engage the kids and get them on a path of discovery and fun (no OO, pointers, complex data structures, less abstraction, etc. is a plus), but at the same time give them some useful foundations to grow from.﻿

Too funny. And an Iridium satellite phone! I once researched Globalstar when I was on a satellite kick - they had a funny (well, NOT funny for them, at all) issue where they launched additional satellites for their satellite phones, but their S-band antennae degraded unexpectedly - so they could use the brand spanking new satellites for simplex, but not duplex, resulting in serious service issues for a bunch of their duplex satphone customers. Looks like they were able to launch a bunch of new satellites in 2007, though...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalstar﻿